macnn/electronista
11/22/2008, 1:55am, EST
Saturday, November 22ndPalm cutting jobs to gain ground on Apple, RIM
Palm is responding to its recent losses by trimming its workforce of 1050 employees, in an effort to remain competitive against the iPhone 3G and the various BlackBerry models. Reuters reports that the move comes as Palm focuses on its Linux-based "Nova" operating system, as well as a device on which the platform will run. Palm spokeswoman Lynn Fox declined to say how many jobs will be cut, but said the first round began this week.
In order to stay ahead of Apple and RIM, Palm has hired former Apple execs John Rubenstein and Mike Bell, but still has much to overcome. A recent study found that only 5 percent of companies would purchase a Palm-based smartphone over the quarter, down from 10 percent in the year ago quarter, while 78 percent sought BlackBerries, 22 percent wanting iPhones.
Palm is also facing a likely cash shortage, according to filings found by a Morgan Keegan analyst. The company is reportedly examining several practices to avoid further financial troubles.
Filed under: mobile phones
Other story tags: Palm, Nova
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It's sad, but the end...
It's sad, but the end is nigh for Palm.
Market Cap: 243.96M
Total Cash: 248.31M
Total Debt: 397.00M
Net Income: -151.97 (past year)
PALM was trading at $802.50 a share in 2000. It's now at $2.24 a share. The new Nova based Palms have been pushed back to the second half of 2009...along with lay-offs, this may mean they're scrambling to hit next year's holiday season.
When Nova does come out, Palm will be trying to support their own operating system, which is not only going to be new to market, but trying to compete with app store mobile OSs like Apple has, and others will have. Of course it makes it a bit harder to establish a new mobile OS when you yourself are competing with it with TWO other mobile OSs at the same time: Centro and Windows Mobile.
It's too bad, Palm was such a great company at its PDA-peak.
Written off
How many times were Apple written off?
Merry Christmas!!!
Nice timing. You think they could have seen this coming 6 months ago.
Confusion
Went to Best Buy to add grandma to our iPhone family. First time shopping for a phone outside of the Apple store. The array of phones spread out in the store was bewildering. 100's of models. How can a new user decide? Simple turn to counter with the one and only iPhone and buy it. A lot of new people are going this way.
Bye Palm!
Palm should be studied in business schools on how NOT to run a company. They have made mistake after mistake. Who needs "Nova" when Android OS will be free and be on loads of phones?
The iPhone now has 9,331 apps. Palm can not match this. RIM replaced Palms for many business people. The name Palm is now a joke as it is associated with a 1990 PDA!
Shame really as they had the edge years ago and lost it. A recently found my old Palm PDA in the back of a drawer and laughed as I forgot I even used one!
Playing the game
Palm could of stayed in the game if they would of worked with Microsoft (since dumping the Palm OS) to provide their customers with a similar App Store just as RIM has started to work on for their RIM Blackberry Smartphones. If Microsoft was unwilling to provide this then they could of gone with Google's Android OS which would of provided more freedom as well lowered R&D cost. Also making their devices with a little more eye candy would appeal to customers who want features but also style when buying a smartphone.
Great Hardware
I always liked the treo 650 for the hardware the UI for palm OS wasn't bad just the mechanics under the hood. They should try and work with google to get android on Palm hardware.
Bye Bye Palm
Stick a fork in them, there done. They just haven't figured it out yet.
Newton-Palm-iPhone
Funny how Palm picked up where Newton left off. Now iPhone picked up where Palm left off.
huh
I never understood how axing 9,000 employees is going to help a company compete with its competition!!!
I don't care for the iPhone that much, but Palm needs to give it up.